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Real Baseball? Hooray! It’s Just Days Away

With Spring Training wrapping up today and our St. Louis Cardinals heading west to Arizona to take on the Diamondbacks on Opening Day, I thought it would be the perfect time to discuss what we are going to be looking forward to this season.

Matt Carpenter

Here we go!

5. Who will step up? Year after year, it’s never obvious. Last season it was Lance Lynn, Daniel Descalso and Pete Kozma. The year before it was Chris Carpenter, Lance Berkman and David Freese. Every year, someone takes your breath away with how well they step up to the challenge of playing for this team. It’s a beautiful thing! My bets on who steps it up? Obviously? Matt Carpenter. He worked hard this off season to become as versatile as possible in the field in order to get his bat in the line up. You have to admire a player willing to do whatever it takes. But I do think we will be wow’d by several members of this team.

4. Pete Kozma and the Shortstop Conundrum. He won the starting job after kicking it into high gear last season after Rafael Furcal went down. And he just kept it up in the Spring. No matter what the arm chair GMs say, Pete has earned this opportunity and I am pleased that he is getting it. Let’s let the guy play and prove himself worthy or not before we trade off Matt Adams and Shelby Miller for Troy Tulowitzki — an arm chair trade proposition that still blows my mind. Some people are super crazy! So… Give him the chance. He’s proven he has quite the bat. He can field and has range. We will know pretty quickly if the Cardinals are needing a drastic change. Descalso is a decent back up and Ryan Jackson and Greg Garcia are going to be excellent options at some point. I know some folks just want the future to be now though… But. Let’s not do that, OK!

3. Adam and Yadi. These two pairing up for another opening day? I am so excited! How about you? I think this year will be better than their home opener performance last season. The ace of the Cardinals pitching staff and the best catcher in the game, who will both be with the Birds on the Bat until at least 2018. It can’t get any better than this!

2. Depth. I am glad to see the team finally have lots of pitching – starting and relief. Every infield position having depth? Wow. As a life long fan of this team, this is just awesome and I’ll just sit back and enjoy!

1. Meaningful Baseball! Sure, the World Baseball Classic and Spring Training games are great. But. Do they mean anything in the grand scheme of it all? No. Not one bit. I’m ready for the regular season to start Monday and we get to see this team. The real team. Not the team that’s just practicing. The team that’s going to get to the playoffs and World Series and win it all! Yup!

I have high hopes for this team! Let’s get this season started! NOW!

Agree with me? Have something you are looking forward to this season that I failed to mention? Feel free to comment below! Or Tweet me @missmiranda.